Dotti Cichon

Three Time Art Party Participant • Art Party Supporter

Chairs — Mikkolan Navettakalleria Finland

Artist’s Website

Artist’s Statement

My work is an exploration of the medium of photography and environmental issues. No matter what form they take, my photos are meant to touch the human psyche and evoke an emotional response, sometimes subliminally. These photos on silk are of my interpretations of actual places transformed by unique perspectives and reflections. As a photographer, I attempt to keep expanding the limits of the medium by innovating and experimenting with new techniques and new ways to incorporate photography into our daily lives. This body of work can be exhibited as art on walls, draped from ceilings, or worn as scarves. Originally, it was exhibited as an installation in Finland titled “Urban Forest” with the silk panels hanging so visitors could walk among them as if walking through a forest. But, instead of trees, they were walking between “skyscrapers.” This was based on my personal experience of living in Silicon Valley. When I first moved here, it was all orchards with scattered homes, stores and buildings here and there. Now, it is virtually all homes, stores, buildings and parking lots with only one square block of orchard preserved as a “heritage orchard” to honor the past. The installation was meant to subconsciously remind viewers about the need to maintain a balance between “progress” and preservation. My photography on silk or other materials may be ordered in virtually any size. I also do custom designs for homes, offices or corporations that express a spirit of place.

About the Artist

Dotti Cichon was born in northern New Jersey in a suburb of Manhattan, New York City. She was born with a photographer’s eye and was a serious photographer from the age of 5 when she was given her first camera. One of her photographs was published in a national magazine at the age of 10, and that led to her starting to sell her work in New York City. In New York, they didn’t care about the age of the photographer, they just cared about the images and required a Social Security number, so her mother took her to get one. She was also born with a desire to travel and speak foreign languages, probably inherited from her maternal grandfather, who immigrated to the United States alone at age 18 from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which has changed hands many times and is now the Ukraine.

With a background in the sciences as well as the arts, a degree in Psychology (Phi Beta Kappa) and Graduate School in Architecture at UC Berkeley, as well as classes and workshops worldwide, she is fascinated by the brain, the mind and man’s place in the infinite time and space of the Cosmos. This informs her artwork and manifests itself in unique, thought-provoking imagery in photography, video installation, artist’s books and the other diverse media in which she works.

Her photographic work is an exploration of the medium of photography itself, and no matter what form it takes, her photography and videos transform into special images that touch the human psyche and evoke emotional response. Much of her work is environmentally or scientifically based and meant to elicit thinking about environmental issues of global importance.

Her work has been exhibited in Canada, England, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and in most states of the United States in solo and group exhibitions. Her work is in public, private, and corporate collections throughout the world and is also shown in public art installations. Her video work, some in collaboration with Anitta Toivio of Finland, has been presented in Finland, Spain, Venice Italy, and the USA in Arizona, California and New York, including at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).